


three

by reviee



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hokage Haruno Sakura, Hokage Uchiha Sasuke, Hokage Uzumaki Naruto, Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reviee/pseuds/reviee
Summary: In which Team 7 governs Konoha, much to Sakura's dismay.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 13
Kudos: 108





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was originally posted on tumblr as [dream team](https://reviee.tumblr.com/post/72408920067/dream-team-prologue-summary-naruto-becomes) in 2014, but im rewriting it in 2020 under the title _three._ it will be updated on [ffn](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13637982/1/power-of-three), [tumblr](https://reviee.tumblr.com/tagged/three), and ao3.

_War is devastating,_ Sakura thinks. She walks through the village streets, passing by hardworking civilians who were repairing the damage caused by overzealous shinobi. It has been three years since the war and reconstruction was still ongoing. The buildings are there, yet they lacked the personality they once had. Konoha’s will is strong, she knows, but she thinks of all the tragedy and that knowledge wavers.

She is supposed to meet Kakashi at the Hokage Tower in ten minutes. She often drops by before her shifts at the hospital, just to keep him company, so it is odd that he has summoned her officially. As often was the case, she is the only one in the village out of Team 7. Naruto’s inability to be without a good mission and Sasuke’s voyage of redemption unsurprisingly kept them away for long periods of time. 

Sakura pauses for a moment in front of Kakashi’s office. She can hear Naruto’s incessant chattering and feel Sasuke’s languid chakra, which is unusual. If the last few years had taught them anything, it was that Team 7 reunions were few and far between. And if that had taught _her_ anything, it was that she had always come last.

She thinks about the way that they have not yet shared a meal together since the war ended. Kakashi had said, _Team 7 is reunited,_ in a way that did not resound with her. She thinks what he really meant was that Naruto and Sasuke’s balance had been restored.

She takes a deep breath and steps in.

“Hi guys,” she chirps, smiling at Naruto and letting her eyes brush over Sasuke. “What are we all doing here?”

Sasuke looks at her as he always does—passive, with piercing eyes. He nods at her. Her heart skips, but she ignores it and takes her place between them.

“Ah, Sakura-chan! It’s not like you to be the last one here!” Naruto grins, brightly, as he always did. She feels better.

They turn to Kakashi, whose smile reaches both his eyes. “I’ve decided to retire,” he announces nonchalantly.

“Eh? You’ve only been Hokage for three years!”

“Well, you know I’ve never enjoyed being Hokage…” he leans back, looking out the window for a brief moment before turning back. “Naruto, your diplomatic missions over the past few years have been immensely helpful for strengthening the ties between nations in the Allied Shinobi Forces. There is still much to be done with the remaining reconstruction, not to mention our obligations to smaller villages, but for now…”

“Am I…going to be Hokage?” Naruto asks.

“Well, yes,” Kakashi replies, “I’ve recommended to the daimyo that you be instated as the Seventh Hokage. I have also recommended Sasuke and Sakura as your official advisors.”

Sakura looks around. Naruto’s mouth is tilted, like he is unsure whether this is happening or not, but his eyes sparkle. His fists are clenched, which she knows he does when he is in the sort of mood that can only be described as violent excitement, like when he is about to enter a particularly vicious battle. She wraps an arm around his shoulders tightly, bringing him down to her face.

“I always knew you could do it, Naruto,” she whispers in his ear, ruffling his hair, and he grins.

“What do you mean that Sakura and I are his advisors?” Sasuke cuts in. “What about Homura and Koharu?”

Kakashi’s eyes are serious for a moment. “They will no longer be serving as Konoha Council. As I said, I have recommended that they be replaced with you and Sakura.”

“And the daimyo consented to this?” Sasuke scoffs.

Sakura wonders why Sasuke is so riled and why Kakashi looks so somber. She wonders why Sasuke looks so skeptical that he could be part of Konoha’s council, when his role in the war had been critical, when he had so arrogantly declared that he wanted to be Hokage. She thinks about how Naruto sometimes laughs at Sasuke and says, _aren’t you glad you didn’t get your revolution,_ and wonders if it is connected. She never knows what he means and does not feel that it is her place to ask.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi starts, “It’s a new era. Embrace it.”

“Is it?”

Naruto stands up, breaking free from her grasp. “You bet it is, teme,” he puts his thumb up. “You can leave it to us, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Sakura?” Kakashi calls. “What about it?”

She is excited, in the same way that she felt when Tsunade had consented to be her mentor, but there is also a feeling in the pit of her stomach. She is happy to support Naruto, to stand next to him in his convictions, even when she is unsure of her own. She thinks of all the times she’s blundered when she’s gone her own way—she thinks of the way Naruto said, _I hate people who lie to themselves,_ and tries to tell herself that he meant only her tired confession, and not her delusion that she is as powerful as her teammates.

Sakura looks at Sasuke, who has taken years to understand Naruto, and whose own convictions about what was right for the village has led him astray. Somehow, she doesn’t think his skepticism is a product of his insecurity, as hers is, but whatever that had worried him has now settled.

“Of course, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura looks at her two teammates, who have been, above everything else in her life, the source of most, if not all, her pain and happiness. Perhaps now, they will finally be on equal footing.

“Let’s do this together.”


	2. one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize in advance for my absolutely chaotic use of italics.

Sakura spends the next five days going through the classified scrolls to absorb information that had been never available to her before. She is not from any prominent shinobi clan, nor had she been deployed on the same diplomatic missions as Naruto, and consequently knew nothing about the history of Konoha. It is ironic, of course, that she had aced every history test during the Academy days, and yet it had done her no good.

Konoha, as the most prominent Hidden Village, has many secrets, she knows. There is no way to effectively teach about the history of the village, and especially not its policies regarding shinobi, without potential fallout. The number of _nukenin_ have been scarce since the war, as they were in an unusual stretch of peace time, but the potential for defection, and the costs of it, were too high to be careless.

As a result, her connections as a shinobi were crucial. She had, in the past, relied on being the Godaime’s apprentice, and being in the confidence of some of the village’s top _jonin_ , for political information.

However, it was no match for people who came from prominent clans, like Hinata, who had access to a rich history of information—which will no doubt benefit Naruto in his role.

Tsunade had always said to her, _you are my apprentice,_ and often, she feels that is her lineage, much more than the way Naruto identifies with Jiraiya, or Sasuke with Orochimaru. In the end, she does not have a _kekkei genkai,_ nor does she have ninjutsu passed down to her like the rasengan or fireball _,_ but she feels pride in being one of two kunoichi who are able to activate the _hyakugou_ seal.

She begins with the scroll labelled _kyubi no yoko shurai,_ and shows it to Naruto, who is here undoubtedly just to humor her.

He laughs and says, “Sakura-chan, Mom and Dad told me all about that!”

She sighs as he leaves, yelling about ramen, and reads about the night the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox attacked Konoha. She takes in Sarutobi’s handwritten notes—the vulnerability of the _jinchuriki_ during childbirth, the use of the Reaper Death Seal, the official change to Naruto’s namesake.

She gets to the appendix, where, in red, she reads: “Uchiha clan involvement.”

There is nothing more written on the subject. The handwriting differs from the rest of the scroll, but it is not signed and there is no way for her to know. She sighs, mulling it over, wondering if she should ask Kakashi, or if it even concerns her. Inner Sakura protests, _of course it’s your business._

Sakura thinks about Sasuke, who had left the village almost immediately after the meeting with Kakashi, telling them he had ‘loose ends,’ and that he’d be ‘back in a few days.’ He probably knows, she decides, because he had been in Naruto’s psyche. He had, after all, met _kyubi_ through the power of the Sharingan.

Sometimes, when he is away from the village, she feels the same way as she did in the moment where she held a poisoned kunai to his back. It was not a murderous rage, but a helplessness that she could not shake and a desire that could not be realized.

She feels as if he will never come back, no matter how much he reassures them that he is doing this for Konoha, which is admittedly not often.

She remembers his words, that _many things have happened,_ yet she also remembers his intent to destroy the Tailed Beasts and to kill them all. She still does not understand it, as he had never voluntarily told her, but so much time has passed, and Sasuke’s absence only made it more difficult to ask.

She sighs, rerolls the scroll, and leaves for the hospital.

.

.

.

Sasuke is at the hospital when she arrives. He sits quietly in her office, in his cloak, looking unscathed.

“Sasuke-kun?” she closes the door behind her, “what’s wrong?”

He rarely asks to be healed, perhaps because he is rarely injured. Often it is his eyes that bother him, yet the inherent nature of possessing a _sharingan_ and a _rinnegan_ make Sasuke secretive about his _doujutsu,_ so he only drops by when it is absolutely necessary. In the years that he has been back, Sakura has healed them only twice, and both times he had insisted she do only enough to repair the obvious damage.

“Sakura,” he greets her coolly, “I’m back.”

“Yes…welcome back, Sasuke-kun,” she smiles softly, “how was it? Did you get everything you wanted?”

He nods.

“Was there anything else I could help you with?”

“Ah…” he looks away for a moment, but then says tentatively, “I was thinking…to begin research on my eyes. It is custom for the Uchiha clan to document our _doujutsu_ on a tablet to be read by other _sharingan_ users and…”

Sakura stops, at a loss for words. “But…”

She thinks that there are no other _sharingan_ users, aside from Kakashi. She thinks about how, unless Sasuke marries and reproduces, that there will not be any other _sharingan_ users at all. She wonders if she should say this, but he looks hesitant, and there is nothing else to say but yes.

“I would love to help you, Sasuke-kun,” she replies softly, nearing the desk, “are your eyes bothering you now?”

“Just a bit,” he mutters, but does not ask her to heal them.

She rounds the desk anyway, ready to infuse some chakra to soothe his nerves, but he grabs her hand before she can.

“No,” he interrupts, “don’t waste your chakra.”

She wants to protest, that she has copious amounts of chakra, but she looks at his face, so serious, and decides against it. Their hands are still connected when says what is really on her mind.

“What do…” she swallows, “…think about all this? The Konoha Council?”

She’s not sure that this is the best way to ask him, so vague and general, when there are so many answers he has yet to give her, but she has no idea how to approach them, and this is the best she can do.

He’s quiet for a moment, but then says: “There’s many things on my mind, but it will be a good way forward for the village.”

“Right…” she agrees, “but there’s a lot we have to deal with, isn’t there? Your pardon was a unilateral decision from Kakashi-sensei and I know many civilians are still…”

“It can’t be helped,” Sasuke shrugs.

She feels the heat of his hand and wonders why he is not bothered. He would have been, she knows, if it had been years earlier. His journey of redemption helped, after all, and she smiles.

“What will you do now?” she asks, “I spent the morning going over the classified scrolls at the Tower. Ah, but I guess…I guess you know more than I do about…”

She does not know if he knows what she means, but he nods and gets up.

“Aa. I’ll drop by,” he finally drops her hand, but she does not move it, “I’ll see you tomorrow then? For my eyes.”

She is stunned, because on the rare occasions he has been in the village the past three years, he spends them briefing Kakashi or training with Naruto. Sakura tells herself it is because she spends an inordinate amount of time at the hospital, and it is just the way things are, but she wishes anyway that he would not forget her.

“That’s fine,” she replies, “come by for dinner. I’ll cook for you.”

He nods and starts to walk out the door but stops in the doorway.

“Thank you, Sakura,” he tells her honestly, and she looks up at him, feeling uneasy.

She knows he does not say _thank you_ lightly, so she knows that this must be part of restoring the clan. She feels hopeful, but the other times he has said _thank you_ have never given her anything to be hopeful about. It is always when he is about to leave—thank you for caring, it seems to say, but I cannot reciprocate.

“You’re welcome, Sasuke-kun,” she smiles at him again, this time weakly, but he does not seem to notice and leaves.

Sakura sighs, gathers her charts, and heads to her first patient.

.

.

.

“We need to organize the orders of business for the transition,” Kakashi sighs, as they sit in the meeting room at the west end of the Tower. “Now that we have sent official notices out to the other villages, the Hokage ceremony needs to happen soon.”

Naruto grins, “Wait, wait, wait! I have something to announce first!”

All three of them turn to look at him. He chuckles and declares, “I’ve asked Hinata-chan to marry me!”

Kakashi immediately groans loudly, while Sasuke sighs. Sakura cannot stop herself from laughing, and without noticing, tears up.

“You couldn’t have waited until after the ceremony, Naruto?” Kakashi holds his heads in his hands.

“Ha ha ha…” Naruto laughs sheepishly, “well, you know…I was just so happy after you told me I would be Hokage! I wanted to show Hinata-chan how much I love her!”

Sakura grins, “Hinata’s a lucky girl.”

“Unbelievable that she would want to marry you, dobe,” Sasuke scoffs, but looks content, and says after a while, “congratulations, dead-last.”

“You know it! Hinata can’t resist me,” Naruto gives him a thumbs up.

“So—” Kakashi thinks about all the political chaos that Naruto is going to cause and asks tiredly, “when is the wedding?”

Naruto scratches his head, “Well…you know how the Hyuga clan is. They want it to be soon, maybe three months? I think they’ve already started the preparations…”

Sakura thinks about how propriety must be the priority for a Hyuga wedding and laughs to herself when she thinks that Naruto will likely be oblivious to all of it. She thinks also of the weight of tradition that must come with a ceremony from an old clan—marrying into Hinata’s family would not be easy for Naruto, no matter how unafraid he was. There were rules that he could not break, for Hinata’s sake, once he was part of them.

She looks across the table to Sasuke and thinks of the Uchiha clan, who must have had many traditions of their own, that he might have been too young to learn, and wonders if this is what he thought about when he asked her to study his eyes.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura scowls, “don’t worry so much. It’ll be okay.”

He sighs for the umpteenth time, and she knows he must be thinking, _did I really do the right thing, promoting these kids to Hokage._ She laughs and reassures him again.

“The other important thing…” Kakashi looks at Sasuke and Sakura, “the Konoha council has not changed for decades, and have spanned the terms of three Hokage. Sasuke has been doing some work with the other smaller villages while he was away, but I think it may be a good idea for you to go along next time, too, Sakura. I know you haven’t traveled a lot, and your reputation precedes you, so I think you’d also like to help some of the villages set up their own medical units, yes?”

Sakura did not know that Sasuke had been on diplomatic missions, too. He had left only with the words, _my journey of redemption_ and _to see the shinobi world,_ but he has never said anything else about it.

She thinks that she would, indeed, like to see the other Hidden villages and help them with their medical units. She knows that Tsunade is unsurpassed in her abilities, but she thinks of Chiyo and the expertise in poisons in Suna and agrees that there is still much for her to learn.

She worries that being there as a political figure, especially one that had played such a large role in the war, might make small villages especially wary. Konoha is not without its reputation, she knows.

“Yes, I’d like that,” she says, glancing at Sasuke, who looks nonplussed, and takes this as a good sign.

Kakashi nods. “Naruto, you need a personal adviser. While Sasuke and Sakura make up the council, and can confer with you on most matters, you need someone who will help you make your day-to-day decisions.”

Naruto shakes his head dutifully. “Shikamaru.”

“Good,” Kakashi agrees, “that’s what I was thinking, too. As for the Hokage ceremony, it will be in two weeks…”

When they are dismissed, Naruto rushes off with shouts of _I’m late, I’m late, goddammit,_ and leaves Sasuke and Sakura behind.

“Are your eyes still bothering you?” she looks at him softly as they step out into the hallway.

He shakes his head and asks instead, “When do you think you’ll be ready for travel?”

She stops and considers this. She knows that Kakashi did not mean they needed to leave right away, but she wonders if Sasuke, after being away for so long, is simply used to not being in the village. The Konoha Council rarely left the village—it was too risky and there was no need. But, she thinks, that was during Homura and Koharu’s rule, and they had been old. She and Sasuke, she knows, are able to protect themselves much better.

“Did you want to leave soon, Sasuke-kun?” she means not to sound this way, because this time she would go with him, although not of his own choice she thinks, but it comes out slightly accusatory. She clears her throat and adds, “I just need to gather my notes, plan an itinerary. We can be gone in a few days.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sasuke replies softly, “we should wait until after the ceremony, at least. You’d also like to be here for Naruto’s wedding.”

Sakura looks at him, thinks about the way he says _you’d like_ and not _we’d like,_ as if Naruto’s wedding did not concern him. She reminds herself that romance was never one of Sasuke’s concerns.

“Yes,” she agrees, “I’d like to help Hinata with the preparations.”

He nods. “We can take a short trip to some of the smaller villages close to the border between the ceremony and the wedding to ease Kakashi’s mind.”

She makes a sound of agreement. Unlike Naruto and Sasuke, whose training brought them to various places in the world, she had never needed to travel. She has been to Suna a few times, on the Godaime’s orders, but was rarely able to stop in between.

“Are you heading to the library now?”

She nods.

“About tomorrow…” he starts quietly, “I’d like to show you something. Can you meet me on the south side of the village before dinner?”

She blinks and wonders what is on the south side of the village, but does not ask. “Sure, Sasuke-kun. I’ll see you then.”

“Aa,” he grunts and begins to walk away. “Don’t stay out too late.”

.

.

.

When Sakura arrives at the library, there is an unmarked scroll on the table that she has not seen before. It is unlikely that Naruto left it there, because it sat neatly upright in the middle of the study desk. She opens it hesitantly. It is unsealed, unlike the other scrolls, which she finds odd.

The words _uchiha no jiken,_ the Uchiha incident, are written in neat handwriting on top.


	3. two

Sakura finds Sasuke’s chakra signature on the south side of the village before she arrives. She is soothed by the feeling, in contrast to the early days of his desertion, when she felt anxiety at every turn.

“Sasuke-kun,” she calls to him and he turns around, looking so painfully familiar to her, as if they were going to meet Team 7, in the way that they did when they were twelve.

They walk together silently, stopping at an empty plot of land. She recognizes it as the old Uchiha district, emptied after the destruction Pein had wreaked on Konoha. Sasuke quickly forms hand seals, and a stone appears, a sharingan carved into its center.

“I’ve been here before,” Sakura says to him softly, looking around. She pauses, wondering if she should divulge the reasons that she had been here. It doesn’t matter anymore, she thinks, if they are to go forward.

She can feel Sasuke’s eyes on her, but they are not accusatory, only curious.

“After you left, I did some studying, on you, Itachi, the Uchiha clan…” _to find you,_ is what she leaves unsaid.

She looks around the field, remembering the old and abandoned buildings that had been here before.

“Most things about the clan were classified, of course, but sometimes I helped Tsunade-sama after hours at the Hokage Tower. Under the properties owned by the Uchiha clan, this was one of them.”

Sakura remembers, as a thirteen-year-old girl, running around frantically attempting to find information on one missing teammate, while her other teammate had also left her behind. For two and a half years she was alone, spending the majority of her time with Tsunade, and only rarely seeing Kakashi.

Kakashi had been embarrassed, she knows now, because he had been naive in his reassurance that everything would be alright. Still, she thinks, she would have liked it if he had at least practiced taijutsu with her. He was, after all, still her mentor.

But, she supposes, she had been Kakashi’s student only insofar as he was Team 7’s leader. To him, Sasuke was his pupil, the one he had passed _raikiri_ down to, and that student had now been using it on his friends.

“There was nothing here, except empty houses,” she looks at the _sharingan_ on the ground, illuminated by dim moonlight, “nothing I could see, anyway.”

“It’s a special seal,” he tells her, “for sharingan users. This is the _nakano shrine,_ where the Uchiha clan held their meetings.”

She nods and they walk descend into the structure. She spots at the far end of the room they enter, a pedestal with a blank stone tablet on it.

“What is it?”

“It is the monument that contains all of the clan’s secrets,” Sasuke replies, “You need the sharingan to read it, and some parts can only be read by those with the _mangekyo._ ”

She nods, unsurprised by the clan’s level of secrecy. Growing up, the disappearance of the Uchiha clan should have been a huge scandal, but she had only heard whispers of a deserter and the word _massacre_. She knows now that the Hokage must have covered it up and looking at the scrolls had only confirmed that there had been little information disseminated about it.

Even now, she thinks, looking at Sasuke, nobody in the village knew much about the whole clan that had disappeared.

She wonders if it is alright for her to know about this.

“So,” he breaks the silence once again, “you read the scroll I left you.”

She nods. She had a suspicion that it was Sasuke who had left the scroll for her last night, unsealed, but it is good that he is confirming it. She had wondered if this was going to be an open secret between them, or if perhaps he had a point in doing so.

He had known about the truth behind the massacre, she realizes, and Naruto must have, too. _Why didn’t anyone tell me_ , she wants to know, but remembers being left behind, and tells herself she should have expected it.

But, still, she thinks about Sasuke telling her, in his own way, and wonders why.

“I did,” she confirms, “I had no idea.”

He is silent for a moment. “Me neither,” he tells her honestly, “Itachi shouldered the burden all by himself,” he pauses, looking at her.

“That’s what being on the Konoha Council means to me.”

Sakura understands. Last night, she had thought, _so this is the truth that Sasuke-kun lives with._ She realizes that divulging this information might have been only a part of their roles as council members, but she nevertheless feels connected to him in a way that she hadn’t before.

“Then,” she walks up to the pedestal, standing next to Sasuke, “we should honour his memory.”

“Aa,” he agrees, and picks up the tablet, “I want to fill this with information about my _mangekyo,_ and possibly the _rinnegan,_ as well. There’s only been very few who have awakened the former, and only me who has the latter. For the sake of the clan, I think it’d be prudent to.

“Will you help me, Sakura?”

“Of course, Sasuke-kun,” she replies without hesitation, and he nods.

It is rare for Sasuke to ask her, of all people, for help. He is often reluctant to accept her efforts, even for the smallest injuries, and she understands that sometimes it is because he does not want to trouble her. _Don’t bother,_ he’ll say, as if to tell her, _don’t bother with me._ But she had never been good at leaving him alone.

“Let’s go, then,” he puts the tablet back down on the pedestal and blows out the torch. “Didn’t you say you were going to cook dinner?”

She grins, thinking about the fresh tomatoes that she had bought that morning, and follows him out.  
  


.

.

.

They eat dinner in silence, but she does not mind because he looks satisfied. She wonders how long it has been since someone has cooked for him and feels happy to be able to do so.

He washes the dishes without being asked to and she dries them. They are synchronized, in a way that Sakura hasn’t felt since their genin days, and she is lulled into a sense that this could be their future.

Sasuke sits on the floor of her living room, his legs crossed primly and his back straight. She kneels in front of him, and watches as he closes his eyes, before she sucks in a breath and places her hands on his face.

“I’m in your care,” he murmurs, and her heart flutters.

Sakura is astonished at the complexity of Sasuke’s sharingan. She had, before the war, briefly examined Kakashi’s eye, which was wholly imbued with what she knew now as Obito’s presence in addition to his own, as two chakras working together. The way it had been implanted had also been rudimentary, but effective, confirmed by the decade of rigorous use Kakashi had gotten out of it. She had been amazed by Rin Nohara’s ability to so rapidly unravel the way that the eye worked, and hopes that she can do the same, for Sasuke’s sake.

She had also seen firsthand how much chakra the sharingan depleted—Kakashi’s inability to deactivate it slowly and continuously burned chakra, even when it had been covered by the headband.

Unlike Kakashi’s eye, Sasuke’s eye is imbued with many chakras: she feels the foreign presence of the chakra that fuels the rinnegan, and the dominance and tightly controlled presence of Sasuke’s own chakra, but most of all, she feels the languid presence of Itachi’s chakra, peaceful and yet overpowering.

She feels the immensity of Sasuke’s sharingan, especially in conjunction with the rinnegan, and understands better how strong he is. It frightens her a little.

They sit like this for a better part of two hours, taking only short breaks so that she could write notes. Sasuke does not say a word, but she is reassured by the sounds of his even breathing. Sometimes she indulges in the sight of the soft lines of his lips, slightly parted, and wonders what it would be like to kiss him. Somehow, despite everything, she feels twelve again.

“Sakura,” he says, catching her wrist in his hand, “let’s stop for tonight. You’re getting tired.”

She blinks and realizes that she has used an immense amount of chakra by intricately tracing his pathways. She lets her arms fall to her lap. Sasuke’s hand lingers for a moment, before he returns it to his side.

She sighs and sits next to him, her back leaning against the couch. She glances at him, blushes, and decides to lean her head against his shoulder. It’s the least he could do, she decides, although she feels slightly apprehensive.

“There’s something else I want to show you,” he tells her quietly, apparently fine with this act of intimacy, and adds, “if you’re not too tired.”

Without lifting her head, she replies, “I’m fine.”

He is silent, and then she feels his fingers on her forehead, just as she had felt them on the day he left for his journey. She remembers the warmth from then, and feels it even stronger now, and realizes that he is transferring chakra to her.

“Sasuke-ku—”

“Just wait,” he tells her, keeping his fingers on her forehead. She closes her eyes.

Suddenly her mind is filled with images—they are hazy, as if she was in a dream, and she realizes it is the Konoha from more than a decade ago. _This is the sharingan’s genjutsu,_ she thinks, and it is so real that she feels the heat of the sun on her cheeks.

She sees a young Sasuke, at four years old, sitting next to Itachi. _No,_ she thinks, _these are Sasuke-kun’s memories,_ and watches as the young Itachi pulls his brother over his lap.

“Big brother will always protect you, Sasuke,” she hears him say, and tries not to cry when she sees the unabashed admiration in the little Sasuke’s face and the tragedy that awaits him.

The scene switches, and she sees a slightly older Sasuke running towards Itachi, who is dressed in full ANBU attire. There is another Uchiha member with disheveled hair leaning against the residence’s front door, presumably waiting for Itachi, and smiling at Sasuke.

This is what his family was like, she muses, before he had lost everything.

“Maybe next time, Sasuke,” she recognizes the words coming out of Itachi’s mouth, before the young Sasuke is tapped on the forehead in the same way she had been.

Her heart clenches.

“Sorry, Sasuke,” the other Uchiha says, “let me borrow your brother for a bit.”

Sakura is filled with a carefree feeling when she sees the young Sasuke’s expression, pouting like the child that he had been. _Even Sasuke-kun can make faces like these,_ she thinks, and briefly remembers similar expressions he had made in their genin days.

He spares her the images of the massacre, she realizes, because they are suddenly on top of a building, surrounded by a vast forest, and she can see Sasuke, around the age he was three years ago, in a black attire. She sees Itachi, bloody, stalking towards him.

“Sorry, Sasuke,” she hears him say with his last breath, “but there won’t be a next time.”

She feels the sensation of Itachi’s fingers on her forehead, the force of the knowledge that he had left with Sasuke swirling in her head.

The scene switches again, and they are now in a cave, and Sasuke is dressed in the same attire he had been wearing during the war. There is a bright light coming from across the room, and she is surprised to see that it is Itachi, with _edo tensei_ eyes.

He is dissipating, she notes, and her mood plummets, now overshadowed by a deep sadness that she has never felt until now.

“…you don’t ever have to forgive me. And no matter what you do from here on out, know this… I will love you always.”

She can feel the weight of Itachi’s forehead against hers, and the complete helplessness that is coursing through Sasuke. She feels as if she cannot breathe, the pain in her chest wound so tightly that she gasps achingly. She realizes that she is suffering for real, that this pain mirrors the one that Sasuke had felt even more profoundly, and that there are hot tears rolling down her face.

Sasuke quickly releases her from the genjutsu. She lets out a small cry as he wraps a strong arm around her shoulders.

He is silent as she cries, his fingers gripping her shoulder reassuringly. Her mind is blank, she cannot even begin to comprehend what has just happened, but she knows that she has never felt anything like it.

Sasuke had shared his memories and feelings of his brother with her, in a way that only members of the Uchiha clan could.

“The Uchiha clan valued love and friendship above all else,” Sasuke tells her, his voice steady and calm, “and feels everything too deeply. When that feeling consumes them, the sharingan awakens. That is the Uchiha clan’s curse of hatred.”

Sakura has nothing to say. The words echo in her head, and she cannot stop trembling. She leans into Sasuke in an attempt to calm herself, and feels him tighten his arm around her, the warmth of his breath on the top of her head.

She falls asleep in his embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i [think](https://twitter.com/reviee_/status/1289603805475147776?s=20) about this scenario all the time


	4. three

When Sakura wakes, she is properly in her bed, covers up to her chin, and a glass of water on the bedside table. Her body feels exhausted, as if she had only slept three hours, but she does not ache anywhere, so she knows she did not spend the night against the couch.

She also knows that Sasuke is no longer in her apartment, because she cannot feel his chakra anywhere near her. There is no note, none that she can see, but she figures she will see Sasuke at the next council meeting.

She thinks about the images from yesterday—the tap of Itachi’s fingers against her forehead, shadowed by Sasuke’s same gesture. She realizes now that it had been Itachi’s expression of a regretful, yet unconditional and unyielding love that he could not freely give under the circumstances.

The weight of Itachi’s sacrifice, the obligations he had to the village above all, presses on her in a way it never had before. When Sasuke had asked her for help, it had been for his clan, but—she thinks—he knows that the clan must be integrated into the village.

She wonders if Sasuke, in showing her these memories, wants to convey the same meaning as Itachi had: that while he cannot reciprocate her feelings of love, she, along with the rest of Team 7, would always be his family. Since his return, there had been no question of his loyalty to Konoha.

It would have been enough at one time, she reflects, when she had just wanted him to return, to be Team 7 again, but his newfound presence in the village unsettles her. There is so much unsaid between them: she winces when she thinks of both times she’s selfishly cried and confessed her love. She feels tired when she thinks of both times that he’s told her that she has nothing to do with him.

She knows that one is not like the other, but Sasuke has never said enough when it mattered, and no matter how much she prides herself in understanding him, she cannot read his mind.

Logically, she understands that, for all the times Sasuke had found her expendable during the war, it had been for the survival of the world. But, at least, that was the problem—that her relationship with Sasuke had always been second to his relationship to Naruto, to the aggrandization of his power. In the years that she has trained herself to become accustomed to the way his demons plague him, she continues to fear that she will always want more in a way that he would not give. Why was it so difficult for the man who had saved mankind to do the same for her?

Perhaps last night was his way of showing her that it did have something to do with her. She feels the phantom tap of his fingers on her forehead in her memories and the warmth of his last thank you, and allows herself to smile slightly. Whatever it means, the gesture is theirs alone, and she takes comfort in it.

But, his return has made her realize that things would never be the same again, that there was no way to go back to the way things were. Sasuke’s past will haunt him, just as theirs will haunt her, and she wonders how they will live with it, let alone have it hang over the village.

.

.

.

Sakura meets Hinata, Ino, and Tenten for lunch. They do this often, especially now that they no longer have as many missions. Temari still shuttles between Konoha and Suna, but she had murmured last time that she thinks she will move to Konoha permanently soon.

She has not seen them since she’s gotten the news of being appointed to the council, but by now she thinks they must have heard.

She hopes that the news of Hinata’s engagement will overshadow the developments in her life – she does not yet know how to articulate how she feels about it, especially not after last night. _What is a village? What is a shinobi?_ she thinks of the questions that had plagued Sasuke, and thinks she needs to answer them herself before she can properly take her place on the council.

“Sakura!” Ino yells from across the shop, “You’re late!”

Sakura shuffles over to the table sheepishly, laughing as she takes a seat next to Ino. “Sorry, sorry. I overslept.”

“Geez, that’s so unlike you,” Ino huffs, peering at her, “what were you doing last night?”

Sakura tenses, “Huh?” she looks around, and they are all looking at her expectantly. “A-Ah…. Well… I was—with Sasuke-kun…”

Tenten squeals and Ino wraps a strong arm around her neck. Sakura sees Hinata laughing softly across from her, and she immediately turns red.

“N-No!—It’s not…” she stutters, thinking that Sasuke would not like it if she divulged information about the Uchiha clan, “we were just having dinner, since he’s back and all…”

Ino waggles her eyebrows, “Late night?”

“We were just…” she sighs, “talking about council stuff.”

Sakura’s tone must have alerted them, because Ino pulls her arm away and gives her a worried look.

“We’re so proud of you, Sakura,” Hinata assures her, smiling, “you’ll do a wonderful job.”

Ino furrows her brow. “Are you worried?”

There is a beat of silence while Sakura attempts to find her words.

“I just…think that Kakashi-sensei has too much of faith in us,” she admits, but keeps her insecurities about her own abilities to herself, “Are we really ready to do this together? When we haven’t seen or worked with each other in years…”

“That’s not what it looked like during the war,” Tenten interjects, “your teamwork was impeccable.”

Sakura knows, logically, that their work during the war was enough to prove that, even with Sasuke’s disjointed ambitions, they could work together. But, she thinks, governing a village, the strongest one in the shinobi world, is not the same as agreeing on battle tactics, even to defeat a god.

Whereas battle is fueled by morale and idealism, the language that Naruto espouses so readily, governance and politics is often overshadowed by compromise and pragmatism. If anyone can bridge the difference, it is undoubtedly Naruto, but Sakura still wonders if they are ready to deal with the weight of the bloody history of shinobi when they have not dealt with their internal strife.

“I know,” she resolves to say, “but so much has happened, you know? Naruto’s always been the same, but me and Sasuke-kun…I just don’t know if we’ll ever be like we were.”

“Isn’t that fine?” Ino retorts, “You two have changed. It’s alright if it’s not like when you were genin.”

Hinata refills Sakura’s tea, pushing the cup towards her. “If anyone can support Naruto-kun,” she says, “it’s you and Sasuke-kun.”

Sakura muses about whether or not she is really worried about teamwork, or if it is her insecurities that continue to plague her. What does she have to offer the village, to the shinobi world? she wonders. She thinks about the feeling of wanting to protect the village, the one that Tsunade had fervently fought for, but more than that, she thinks of wanting to protect Naruto’s dream.

There is also Sasuke’s dream, she reminds herself, of restoring the Uchiha clan. The only problem was, she had no idea how to go about it, and she had a feeling that he did not either.

The confidence in Hinata’s voice and Ino’s nonchalant attitude reassures her for the moment, so she smiles back at her friends. “I guess you’re right about that.”

“Speaking of which…” Tenten grins, “how are at the wedding preparations, Hinata?” 

“They’re going well. The clan has a lot of resources, so they’re really helpful,” Hinata smiles, and looks genuinely happy, which eases Sakura’s mood even further.

“And Naruto?” Ino prods further, “Is he helping?”

“Well, Naruto-kun is doing his best to prepare for Hokage these days, so he spends a lot of time with Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei,” she looks proud and radiant, and Sakura barely remembers the days she spent with her mulling over how to confess, “but he stops by to speak to _otousan_ often.”

Sakura laughs lightly, “Who would have imagined that Naruto would be so respectful towards elders…”

As she watches Hinata blush and glow while talking about her upcoming wedding, she feels that Naruto has grown up, to the point where she is relieved that he has been appointed Hokage. Kakashi-sensei had been a sensible choice, for transition purposes, but he has been through too much and no longer had the kind of optimism to reinvigorate a village and to lead a new and unprecedented shinobi alliance.

Naruto, she feels, will never run out of his optimism, and that reassures her.

The wedding, despite Kakashi’s protests, is happening at the right time, she thinks. Naruto needs someone like Hinata to be by his side, which is all that really matters.

.

.

.

When Sakura returns home from the hospital, she is surprised to find Sasuke sitting on her couch. She can smell the scent of food wafting from the kitchen and hear the whirring sound of her stove, a sensation she has not felt since she was a genin.

“Sasuke-kun?” she calls, putting down the grocery bag she carried on her arm.

Sasuke walks over to her and picks up the bag she had just put down. She lets out a small, _ah—I’m back,_ to which he replies quietly, “welcome home,” and heads to the kitchen.

She follows him, where the table is set for two, and where the dishes are being kept warm and ready to eat. She is confused, but she supposes that she’s never had Sasuke in the village like this, not preparing to leave again, so she does not know what to expect.

“Did you…” she peeks at the pot filled with miso soup, and spies the tomatoes floating at the top, “…make all this?”

“Aa,” he replies, putting the groceries that she had bought into their respective places, “I thought you weren’t working today.”

She blinks and wonders how he remembers the way she keeps her house, “Yeah, I didn’t want the work to pile up tomorrow, so I thought a half-day would be fine…”

In the months between the end of the war and the day he left, she had cooked for Sasuke frequently. After being released from jail, he had been assigned a small apartment on the outskirts of the village, that barely had a working stove, and she had brought him warm dishes almost daily. In the weeks leading up to his leave, she had invited him to her apartment for meals, but they had been rare and they had been quiet, almost deathly so.

She thinks about how she had wanted it to be a Team 7 meal, but between Naruto’s newfound status as the village hero and Kakashi’s new appointment as Hokage, she had them only with Sasuke.

It had been once her dream to be alone with Sasuke, but the silence had been deafening and the knowledge that he would leave had pressed upon her.

“Don’t overwork yourself,” he chides sternly, and she hums in vague agreement as she sits down.

“When did you have time for all this?” she asks as he sets a bowl of rice in front of her.

He shrugs and sits down across from her. They breathe out _itadakimasu_ in unison and they begin to eat quietly.

It is a repeat of last night: they eat and they do the dishes together, in perfect synchronicity. She thinks about how delicious the meal was and muses that Sasuke must have cooked many meals for himself in his time away.

They return to the table with a pot of freshly brewed tea between them.

“Are you…alright?” he asks and it is almost a whisper.

She looks up, surprised, but she cannot see his eyes, and she is unsure what he is referring to. She thinks he means about her work at the hospital, but she feels, on the contrary, that she has not been there enough.

He adds after a while, “…after last night.”

“Oh…ah, yes,” she blushes, the memory of his arm around her shoulders and the feel of his body pressed against hers flashing momentarily, before the grave feeling of sadness washes over her.

She can feel his eyes on her from across the table and she tries not to squirm. If she is honest with herself, she is uncomfortable with having such memories shared with her, in such a manner, even though it had once been all she wanted, what she _still_ wanted. But somehow, it felt wrong, as if she did not deserve it, as if she were intruding.

They are silent for another while, before Sakura musters the courage to ask: “is it alright…to have shared that with me?”

“In order to move forward,” he dips his head in an almost imperceptible nod, “it’s important to acknowledge the past. It’s made me who I am today, after all.”

She thinks, for a moment, about what this means, for Sasuke, for his clan, for the village. If they were to be a new generation, one that took its history seriously, what would they have to do? Sasuke’s words, _what is a shinobi? what is a village?_ again echo in her mind.

“Do…” she swallows, “…Naruto and Kakashi-sensei know?”

“Most of it.”

So, she muses, she was the last to find out, again. She fidgets with her cup, watching the liquid swirl and glisten. He must have seen her expression, because she hears him speak again.

“I didn’t tell them,” he says, “Obito did.”

She looks up, surprised that he could read her mind. He is looking at her intently, and she wonders when it was that Sasuke had begun to understand her that easily. Maybe she has always shown all her emotions on her face, after all, despite the years of shinobi training. Or maybe it has been always because it is Sasuke-kun that she cannot hide them.

“I see,” she smiles shyly, a little embarrassed to have been caught with such petty emotions, and yet at the same time unsure whether he had actually known about them.

Her brows furrow, and she asks tentatively, “what will you do?”

“I’m not sure,” he replies, even though he sounds as if he were, “this might not be a question I can answer alone.”

“Yes,” she agrees quietly, “you might be right about that.”

They finish the rest of their tea in silence.

When Sakura looks at him, she can feel the weight of his burden, the one that he chooses to take on, and she wonders what she can do for him. They are in this together, about this she is resolute, but sometimes she thinks that there is so much darkness swirling around him that it would take a lifetime to resolve it.


End file.
